The Rain Is Falling
by J2
Summary: Vegeta contemplates his relationship with his significant other, and his past


It's been awhile since I last uploaded, yes? Anyway, this is just my own preferred twist on the familiar Vegeta/Bulma relationship, along with some musings about what the relationship between the prince and his father might have been like. It's rather dark, so if you only like happy fluffy stories, please spare yourself. ^_^  
  
Much thanks to Juunigou for her help.   
  
  
  
  
The Rain is Falling  
  
  
falling, falling  
the rain fell  
digging harsh grooves  
in the earth's brown face,  
with its rough embrace,  
a blending of selves  
and merged identity  
  
falling, falling  
the rain fell  
like kisses from heaven  
imparting life to its beloved  
yet--  
each watery kiss:  
a crushing embrace,  
gouging the passive face  
to its own perfection  
  
******  
  
  
Motionless.  
  
The figure of a man stood utterly still, his posture rigid as a clenched fist, as if the droplets dripping down his ebony spikes and olive skin were beneath his notice. Even the increase of the shower to a steady, rhythmic downpour did not warrant so much as the annoyed blink of a piercing eye.   
  
After all, what were the elements but a petty consideration to one of royal blood; only the weak allowed their actions to be dictated by outside forces. And the decision should not even be a matter of consideration--he knew this with absolute certainity--and yet...  
  
Within the twin pools of obsidian, a barely discernable trace of uncertainity flickered across the liquid surfaces for the briefest of moments. Reflexively, a jaw muscle tightened at this alien emotion, as if a cold steel instrument had probed a sensitive and restricted area.  
  
As heir to Vegetasei's throne, he had never questioned his own actions, never apologized for his decisions, never allowed anyone to change his mind, and had never acted out of anything but total confidence in his own power. It was both his right... and his obligation.  
  
Then Vegetasei had been shattered into a billion fragments along with his destiny and a foolish child's idolation of a father, but his resolve to trust in his own abilities had only hardened. He had to for survival--there was no one of worth to rely on for even the smallest advice; only Nappa and Raditz had survived. A derisive sneer curled his lip: as if he would have disgraced himself by relying on them for anything.  
  
Hardness was the only way to survive, the only way to keep his young mind and spirit free from the barbs of that lizard freak--feather-light, yet distilled with a poison that could sink to the heart and paralyze. He had seen it happen to the others Freezer kept ensnared in his little pathetic echelon. A long repressed memory of such an incident floated to the surface of his thoughts like oil through water, and a stomach muscle flinched involuntarily.  
  
By a natural cunning sharpened with evil intentions, his self-appointed guardian had wielded his perceptive insight like a doctor a needle, casually puncturing the most sensitive areas of the young prince's heart. --You knew what would hurt me the most, didn't you, you bastard lizard?-- Although he had been but a child, he understood the implications of Freezer's soft, off-hand remarks... somehow, *he* was the responsible one... the one guilty beyond redemption. His brave and noble father had trusted him, and he had betrayed that trust.  
  
A familiar memory darted across his mind's eye like the flash of an elusive bird, never perceived all at once but in fragments of glimpses, as if the complete image were too beautiful and horrible to reveal itself in full. Most days he simply ignored such pointless reminiscences, but now he found himself immobile and helpless before the events that paraded themselves past him like an obscene retinue, relentless and forceful.  
  
[An unexpected touch of affection from him]  
  
It was nothing, really; just a careless ruffling of the young prince's rebellious hair while the king strode down the corridors, flanked by his royal guards. An afterthought of a chance encounter, that was all. Normally he only saw his father at dinner and other official events, or  
when Nappa brought him before the king's throne to demonstrate the precocious prince's new skills. And yet... it had been a spontaneous act that welled up out of *something.* He had been worthy of the attention of his superior.  
  
[A laugh of genuine approval]   
  
He had gotten fed up with the guards constantly attempting to shelter him and stifling his fun, no doubt as a result of the bald-head's orders. After many frustated efforts to force the guards to leave him to his own devices, he had finally decided on a surprise tactic. So he had faked compliance for an entire day by meekly paying attention to his tutors and following his schedule without balking. (Deceit could be a very useful skill for a royal to master; he had learned *that* from his father.) By afternoon his patience had paid off: after their initial shock and suspicion had worn off, the guards began to visibly relax and even joke amongst themselves about the prince's sudden docility.  
  
That was when he struck--at the knees of the most disrespectful one, to be specific. Only he hadn't meant to launch himself hard enough to send both of them flying through the wall--into a sprawling, dusty heap at the feet of his father and a group of shocked off-world dignitaries.  
  
But he did not apologize to the dignitaries or offer polite excuses; he did not even acknowledge their presence. They were irrelevant. Instead, the three-foot-tall heir drew himself up gracefully as if he were not dirty and had not been seen in an undignified position with a lowly third-class guard. He tilted his head back and looked his father in the eye calmly. "I'm just drilling the guards about the importance of being alert, Father," he said casually.  
  
The King's pitch-black eyes widened, and a visible tremor ran across his muscles.  
  
The prince steeled himself for the blow that would surely come, forcing himself not to bow his head or look away.  
  
A deep, foreign sound began to shake the King's muscular frame.  
  
He was laughing!   
  
The young prince's mouth fell open as he stared at his father.  
  
The king laughed unabashedly for several moments, the stone walls carrying the hearty reverberations throughout the palace. After several strained moments of stunned silence, the dignitaries decided they'd better join in and added their nervous, high-pitched chuckles to the king's bass.  
  
"No apologies, eh?" his father said as he cleared his throat, stoic dignity resumed with ease. "That's *my* son." The king swirled around, his crimson cape cutting a wide swath that the guests had to jump back to avoid. "And that's the way it *should* be," he added with a malevolent glower for the pathethic off-worlders' benefit.  
  
Shortly afterwards, the bedecked entourage had swept from the throne room onto other engagements and the dusty guard had stumbled to his feet grumbling incoherently about bruises and repairs, but the young heir remained frozen as if his father were still standing in front of him.  
  
That's *my* son.  
  
[last words]  
  
He was crying. Not loud sobs, that would be most unbecoming for a prince and a Saiya-jin warrior. Just silent tears that slid down his smooth cheeks and mingled with the broken shards of wet glass that shimmered in the dimly lit chamber. He had broken his father's waterglobe--not just any globe, but the heirloom that had been passed down from king to king, ever since the reign of the first Vegeta who had advanced his tribe to military prominence, and later ascended the stone throne he had hewn himself. Inside the globe was a replica of the tribal coat of arms.  
  
He had just wanted to peek at it--to hold the crystalline orb in his hands, to finger it, to figure out how to become a good king... someone that his father could be proud of.  
  
But it had slipped through his clusmy, chubby child's fingers and shattered. One of the few possessions his father truly valued, and he had broken it.  
  
Later (he didn't remember how much time had passed; time always seemed like an eternity to an anguished soul), he became aware of the heavy tread of the king's feet on the plush carpet.   
  
With a quick survey of the room, the king took in the huddled form of his son, the tears, and the broken globe. He did not hesitate to act. A few quick strides brought him to the side of his son, who looked up fearfully with tear-stained cheeks.  
  
The sound of flesh striking flesh rang out, slicing through the quiet sanctity of the bedroom tableau. The boy thudded into the wall, and chunks of stone and chunks of prince were torn from their usual places.  
  
A brief look of regret flashed across the king's face as he stared at the broken form of the prince, whose adoring, soft eyes had been shattered with a single slap. The oddest, most ridiculous sensation of mourning swept over the king, but he shook it off like he would a clinging child. "Get up."   
  
Quicky, the child tottered to his feet, swallowing his tears in a salty gulp as he bravely ignored the blood that was pooling in his right eye.  
  
"Do you know why it was necessary for me to strike you?" the king asked flatly, gloved hands folded severely behind his back.  
  
"Be... because I broke the globe," came the faint, hesitant reply.  
  
"No! Because you failed in your duty. And if you are to be king, you must never fail the responsibility you have to the planet." The king stepped forward, shards of glass crunching under his boots. "Hurry and get cleaned up. You're going on a trip."  
  
"Where?" asked the prince, his demeanor brightening with anticipation. He had never been on a *real* trip before. He did not notice the shadow that darkened his father's face.  
  
"Nevermind. Go to your chambers and pack with Nappa."  
  
Immediately, the boy raced out of the king's chamber with exuberance, his tiny footfalls echoing down the hallway.  
  
"Goodbye, son," the king said hollowly to the empty room.  
  
[Goodbye...]  
  
The man of the present scowled at the child of the past as he finally managed to wrest control of his mind from his runaway memories. How the hell could he possibly have known if his father had said goodbye? Likely the exaggerations of an imagination perverted by human sentiments.  
  
And it was the effects of those same adulterating emotions that had brought him so low, fallen from the glory bestowed upon him by a long line of proud ancestors. That had restrained him from seizing his rightful place as strongest Saiya-jin from a pathetic third-class commoner. That kept him from fulfilling his obligation to his father, who had sacrificed all for his planet and honor like a true king would... that's why he could never be more than a prince.   
  
A wild swell of emotion seized him at that thought, and his nostrils flared as his eyes widened with self-disgust. He knew what a true king would have done: he would have avenged his father and planet, next slain Kakarot, and then rebuilt the Empire, expanded it far beyond its former glory.  
  
But he could not. Each time he released his purifying rage, forced his ki to swell in his body, let it explode through his flesh, reaching towards infinity... then the intangible silken cords tightened around his soul like an elastic cage, squeezing his heart into an impotent submission. He fought it--he always fought it--but he could never win. His power remained the same--stagnant--as the elusive higher state slipped through his fingers yet again. Yes, he had achieved Super Saiya-jin, but so had they, and so much more.   
  
--If they only knew.-- He stared a tiny puddle forming in a rocky cliff indentation near his boots. --Kakarot is so dense.-- Cunning as a warrior as the wide-eyed Saiya-jin was, he had no idea that his chief rival, his prince, the one destined to kill him was a mere... a mere...   
  
*Bonded toy.* A slave of spirit to his pale, soft mate. Slowly, the Saiya-jin raised his chin from his chest, eyes flashing with the violence of an entire race denied its lusty, grasping demands on life. It was the final insult to the memory of a fate-cheated people to have their last warrior disgraced in such a manner, and to the memory of a blood-stained diadem.   
  
It had not been a bond of conscious or deliberate choice. A muscle twitched in his high-planed face. No, that would have been obscene. But the result was the same: it was merely a matter of the degree of guilt. To bond was a repulsive fate for a warrior: a warrior alone, pure, could rely on his own strength and courage, yet a bonded one had to live with the threat of the parasitic drain of his mate on his resources--mental, emotional, and even physical. Or so he had heard; the few that had dared to allow *it* to happen were exiled or executed immediately if their rank was high enough to draw attention. Or so he *knew*. It had taken him years to pinpoint the source of his weakness.  
  
Hard, chipped nails dug into callused flesh, drawing forth a gush of warm liquid. Maybe he hadn't wanted to recognize it. It should have been obvious upon the moment of unnatural conception, but it had been so pleasant, so subtle... subconsciously, he had always thought that the threat of the union would heralded by unspeakable emotions of terror and revulsion, sweaty pricks of conscience, or at least that it would somehow be recognizable for the horror that it was.  
  
Now he realized that it had its poisoned roots in the gentlest and most innocuous of gestures... a pearled flash of a smile, a gleam of the sun upon blued hair, a soft caress of a silked hand. Or the little kindnesses she showed him even after yelling at him for two hours straight. He had never known kindness.   
  
At first it had repulsed him: kindness was weakness. To be weak was to be inferior. To be inferior was to die.   
  
But she was not weak. A twisted smile curved his lips bitterly. No, she had always been stronger than he--her will, her soul, held an unbreakable hold over him. It was mirrored in her very eyes that had first entranced him on Namek: they shone like twinned orbs of liquid passion. Maybe it was then, even in that brief, chance encounter that the first faint tendrils of her dominion had curled around his soul...   
  
He could feel her even now in his thoughts: the vague, hazy nature of them informed him that she was gently slumbering, no doubt with the hint of a silly smile on her face, one arm thrown back over the pillow. Sometimes at night he would lie awake, onyx eyes staring at her... just to enjoy experiencing her dreams. He never had dreams.   
  
Only nightmares.  
  
But she would never know that--that sometimes he awoke abruptly in a cold sweat, the rush of adrenaline suffocating his heart--for the bond was not mutual. Not reciprocated. An empty one-way street. She could never experience his pain like he had felt hers in childbirth, could never feel his agony at his aborted ambition, could never hear his thoughts echoing in her head. She did not even know of bonding, much less that he was bonded to her. She had no idea of how much control she wielded over him, one of the most powerful warriors to ever exist. He could not bear to be out of her presence for long; he could not even leave the planet for an extended period of time. He was tethered to her like a child on a safety leash to its mother: she was his oxygen.   
  
The irony of it was sickening.  
  
And it was killing him inside. A silent, soft murder of the self.   
  
Day by day, he could feel himself slipping silently further down the path of humanity, becoming less of a Saiya-jin, less of a warrior, less of a prince. The transformation had been so subtle and gradual that he had scarcely noticed until it was too late, and the bond was too strong, strengthened by years of complacency and even outright embrace. Disgust flickered in his eyes at recollections of his behavior. Oh yes, he had enjoyed her... so much he let her dress him in ridiculous human clothes, teach him humans customs like silverware, force him to participate in silly ritual days... let her inculcate him into an inferior culture.  
  
He stared at his rain-soaked skin, imagining what his end would be like. He envisoned a death on satin pillows in a white, sterile hospital, surrounded by pitying faces that patted his withered hands. A human death for a not-quite-human.  
  
Loathing clawed his mind, and he shuddered.  
  
There was, of course, one way to break the bond. Only one--  
  
But it was unspeakable.  
  
Then he thought of his father.  
  
****  
  
A form slipped through the silent night, a shadow in a land of shadows. It glided into the dome-shaped building with an accustomed ease, easily evading the security. Within a matter of a few minutes, it arrived outside the door. Hesitant, a hand wavered as it reached for the knob--but for the briefest of moments.  
  
With a deliberate purposefulness, the black figure moved slowly towards the sleeping woman, as if it were memorizing every detail of a strange, foreign creature. Surrounded by plump white pillows, she lay curled in a ball, encased in a filmsy nightgown that outlined a frail frame. The pale body nested in a mountain of bedding, the whiteness broken only by long strands of blue silk. Soft breaths pierced the silent air periodically.   
  
Obsidian orbs fixed upon the placid white face, as if in a trance. A pair of tanned, roughened hands encircled the eggshell white neck in a tender caress. Gently... so that no violent splash of red would stain the perfect clear skin... so that beautific hint of a smile would never fade from the soft lips--  
  
A murmur! The tiny smile grew larger as the woman whispered in her sleep, her body stretching as if in response to the touch. "Mmm... Vegeta... so silly," the woman mumbled lazily to the pillows.   
  
Shocked, the hands fell away from the neck, and the angel of death faded back into the darkness, the tranquil bedroom undisturbed.  
  
****  
  
Sheets of rain still fell from the black unforgiving sky, harshly beating upon the shell of the mortal that dared stand unsheltered in defiance.  
  
He thought of her, a few months back when she had given a cocktail party for her employees and stockholders. Naturally, he sulked in the background, scowingly clad in a three-piece. He remembered her raising a glass to give a toast, slender fingers wrapped around the crystalline stem. He remembered thinking that her fingers would break as easily that stem if he handled them too roughly. Like icicles. Somehow, her eyes picked him out from the bustling crowd, and she teasingly tipped the glass towards him before drinking.  
  
He thought of her as his spirit flickered in his eyes, like flames thirsting towards the stars. His right hand stretched outwards as cobalt tendrils exploded from the palm. He nestled the sphere tenderly in his palm, nuturing it to life. Strange, he mused, that he had never noticed the beauty of it before, a steel blue vibrance like her.  
  
The sphere began to pulsate rapidly, eager to be birthed. The Saiya-jin gently raised it before him, a glass of fire. An ironic smile curved his lips upwards before he drank deeply from it.  
  
"Here's to you, Bulma."  
  
****  
  
falling, falling  
the warrior fell  
digging trenches  
into the passive face  
of the earth  
with his bloodied nails  
  
falling, falling  
the warrior fell  
like a thunderclap  
imparting life  
to the browned earth  
with each gush  
of liquid red  
  
****  
  
The End. Thanks for reading. Feedback is much appreciated.   
  
  
Copyright 2001, J^2 [I did not create Dragonball. These characters belong to Akira Toriyama, Bird Studios, TOEI, trademarked in America by FUNi. I'm a perpetually broke fan. A college student = no money = no reason to sue.]  
  
  
  
  



End file.
